Fair Tax

[Mayberry]

I believe the time has come for this idea. The Fair Tax, as outlined here: http://www.fairtax.org is the best solution I've seen to date for a lot of our financial problems. This system completely removes any arguments any one may have about the fairness of taxation, and guarantees complete compliance by eliminating loopholes, shelters, etc. Several states have run on this basic system for decades, Texas included. Of course it's not perfect, but nothing is, so unless there is a better alternative, Fair Tax gets my vote.

EDIT: Removed the comma after your link to make it work.

[sbannon]

Craig, you found something that I can agree with you on... almost. I'm actually a big supporter of the fair/flat tax ideas myself, however such a program could only work if it were expanded to replace state and local income taxes on salaries as well.

The reason is simple, if the federal government stopped extracting income taxes from wages some state and many local governments would see this as an opportunity to raise the rates they tax at, thus turing this into a full-raged bilking of Americans.

Unfortunately, there's really no viable way to expand it to replace state and local income taxes since every one has it's own rates. Not to mention it would mean a sales tax of close to 50% on new item purchases.

So, while I support the idea in theory, I don't see it ever going through as is and it would be one heck of a hill to climb to expand it as I've mentioned. So, I won't get my hopes up any time soon.

[Mayberry]

if the federal government stopped extracting income taxes from wages some state and many local governments would see this as an opportunity to raise the rates they tax at, thus turing this into a full-raged bilking of Americans. I've been pondering this, and I think it would not necessarily be the case. Verbiage could be included in Fair Tax legislation preventing this from happening. Texas basically runs on Fair Tax now. We have no income tax. Of course there are other taxes and fees not unlike states with income tax. And Fairtax.org stated a 30% effective tax rate, not 50%, unless you are including state and local sales tax, which here would bring the total to 38.25%. Still a good deal, since the tax only applies to new items.

[Rider]

I'll gladly get on the fair tax bandwagon. It taxes spending rather than earnings, which of course promotes savings. I do have doubts that it would really work as advertised, though. It's a very simple concept and simple concepts have a way of getting complicated in a hurry. I think it's worth a try, though.

[Labrocca]

Slowing spending is a sure way to kill the economy. I think a flat tax is something we need though.

[Nathan Brazil]

The FairTax:

Abolishes the IRS
Closes all tax loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
Maintains our current Social Security and Medicare benefits
Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
Allows American products to compete fairly
Reimburses the tax on purchases of basic necessities
Enables retirees to keep their entire pension
Enables workers to keep their entire paycheck

The IRS won't be abolished.Â*Â*There will always be a need for someone to count the money and check the paperwork.

What's "fair" about perpetuating welfare for the wealthiest Americans (Socialist security and Medicare)?

Transparency to tax policy?Â*Â*Want that, do ya?Â*Â*Make people pay tax directly, instead of with the current withholding scam.

Compete "fairly"?Â*Â*WTF is meant by "fair" in this usage?

Rather than refund taxes on basic necessities would it not make more sense to not tax them in the first place?Â*Â*Hmmmm?

Retirees get to keep their pensions, eh?Â*Â*What, they stop getting taxed and continue to use services?Â*Â*How's that "fair" to the young family starting out who's paying for those services?

Workers get to keep their entire paycheck?Â*Â*By definition that would mean they're not paying any taxes at all.Â*Â*HEY!Â*Â*That sounds fair to me!


Want a system that would really work? It takes two simple steps:

1) Workers pay estimated taxes personally, by cash or check, at the end of each month. Include all the hidden withholdings so they see how much they're really paying. This'll piss 'em off like nothing else could.

2) Move the tax filing day, the day when they get to compare what they've paid to what they really owed, to Halloween. Gee, that's just a week before the snakes passing tax laws get elected.

These two steps will guarantee radical changes in the way government spends money.

[bobbylien]

The reason is simple, if the federal government stopped extracting income taxes from wages some state and many local governments would see this as an opportunity to raise the rates they tax at, thus turing this into a full-raged bilking of Americans.

So what? It is our job as citizens of our states to elect officials or unelect officials to run our local governments. If the local governments start taking advantage of it, we could throw out the politicians who did it.

A flat tax policy is what we need. I hate progressive tax ideas, forced charity pisses me off. Everyone should be required to pay the same %. Of course the rich should give to charity. But I believe that they should be able to choose their charities. We all have an obligation to give back to our society, but I want to choose which groups my money goes to.

[sbannon]

So what? It is our job as citizens of our states to elect officials or unelect officials to run our local governments. If the local governments start taking advantage of it, we could throw out the politicians who did it.

While that sounds good and I even agree in theory, we have to live in reality. And the reality is that our actions against local governments that take advantage can only be reactionary, meaning that many may suffer for prolonged periods prior to being able to oust the abusers.

Citizens would have to have a full and immediate ability to hold officials accountable for abuses. This would open the door to abuse by special interests groups against officials. It's a can of worms that nobody could possibly want. We'd have Gary Coleman and strippers running in recall races everywhere on a constant basis. It would be a joke.

As I see it, in reality, any fair/flat tax system would have to include state and local funding and stop all income taxes from being collected in order to both work and protect Americans.

[Nathan Brazil]

We all have an obligation to give back to our society, but I want to choose which groups my money goes to.

Bullshit. We have an obligation to be self-reliant, no one has any obligation to carry us. As for the minor amount of publicly financed "commons", yeah, we have a share to pay for roads, police, the courts, the military, and various truly essential functions of government.

But that "give back to society" crap is just a propaganda phrase concocted by socialists to justify socialism.

[sbannon]

We all have an obligation to give back to our society, but I want to choose which groups my money goes to.

Bullshit. We have an obligation to be self-reliant, no one has any obligation to carry us. As for the minor amount of publicly financed "commons", yeah, we have a share to pay for roads, police, the courts, the military, and various truly essential functions of government.

But that "give back to society" crap is just a propaganda phrase concocted by socialists to justify socialism.
That's worth a double Bull-crap! Why do I have to pay for the entitlements you're fond of such as roads, police and the courts?

Need to get somewhere? Walk. Ride a horse. What right do you have to force me to pay for the pavement you prefer? None.

Want your crap to be safe? Thanks to the 2nd amendment you can protect it yourself. Don't make everyone else pay for police departments that only some want or have use for.

The courts? You're kidding, right? This is where tax payer's money is stolen and used to pay a judge to sit over an argument made between a tax payer funded prosecutor and a tax payer funded defender regarding the actions of someone who was chased and arrested by the tax payer funded police. Talk about a bottomless pit of entitlement spending.

This has been a good discussion on the fair tax idea so far, let's not go off track by tossing all these crazy entitlement programs and ideas into the debate. That can be another thread.

[bobbylien]

We all have an obligation to give back to our society, but I want to choose which groups my money goes to.

Bullshit. We have an obligation to be self-reliant, no one has any obligation to carry us. As for the minor amount of publicly financed "commons", yeah, we have a share to pay for roads, police, the courts, the military, and various truly essential functions of government.

But that "give back to society" crap is just a propaganda phrase concocted by socialists to justify socialism.

If you only care about yourself, fine. I didn't mean giving back as in a kind of welfare or something like that. There are many respectable charities out there. It isn't the job of government to run or fund charities, it is ours.

[Nathan Brazil]

That's worth a double Bull-crap! Why do I have to pay for the entitlements you're fond of such as roads, police and the courts?

Because if you weren't ignorant, you'd realize that police and the courts are part of the true essentials of government, and your very freedom to be ignorant depends on their ability to enforce laws guaranteeing that freedom.

As for the roads, you don't have to use them.Â*Â*I don't care.Â*Â*Walk.Â*Â*But if you buy gas, you're helping to pay for the commons we call "roads".Â*Â*If you don't want to pay for their upkeep, don't buy gas, and don't by products that are transported over them, because the cost of the fuel for that transportaion is included in the selling price of the product.

It's easy.

The courts? You're kidding, right? This is where tax payer's money is stolen and used to pay a judge to sit over an argument made between a tax payer funded prosecutor and a tax payer funded defender regarding the actions of someone who was chased and arrested by the tax payer funded police. Talk about a bottomless pit of entitlement spending.

Okay! okay!Â*Â*Enough already!Â*Â*Sheesh!Â*Â*You don't need to PROVE that you don't know what the courts are for, we already knew you didn't.

This has been a good discussion on the fair tax idea so far, let's not go off track by tossing all these crazy entitlement programs and ideas into the debate. That can be another thread.

Entitlement spending is central to any discussion of fairness in tax matters.Â*Â*It's not a fair tax when all people are being robbed to pay for things they shouldn't be required to pay for.

[sbannon]

Nathan, you entirely missed the point of my posting, as usual. Entitlement spending has nothing to do with the original topic of this thread on the Fair Tax idea. How to spend the tax revenue is and should be a separate topic.

[Nathan Brazil]

Entitlement spending has nothing to do with the original topic of this thread on the Fair Tax idea. How to spend the tax revenue is and should be a separate topic.


Of course it does. The fairtax.org website that was linked in the inaugural post of this thread lists continuation in perpetuity of entitlements for the elderly as one of the goals of the so-called "fair tax" that site touts.

Maybe you could read the links?